Little Favours
by Shikijika
Summary: Old kink meme fill. Following drunken hilarity ? at America's house, America and Romano decide that pretending they're dating is obviously the best way to go about fixing their love life. America/England, Spain/Romano America/Romano
1. Sober Men's Thoughts

I posted this in... May? on the Hetalia Kink Meme, and I still haven't finished it. I'm quite a slow writer, you can tell. Hopefully I'll finish it if I post it up here, because I remembered it existed and I kind of want to write it again.

* * *

America wasn't sure why he kept letting Romano visit him – it generally didn't end very well – but he always brought obscene amounts of alcohol with him and suddenly became hilarious when smashed, so he put it to the side to be thought about later. (He'd been doing that for decades, but it didn't really matter so much when alcohol was involved.)

Also, it was nice to be able to relax and rant so openly to somebody who had exactly the same problem. Well, not exactly but it was close enough for it to not matter.

"- and I don't get it, man – wouldn't fucking give a shit if I... I don't fucking know, screwed somebody across the stupid dining room table or something," Romano, who was apparently unable to finish an entire sentence, paused long enough to down another shot and sniff indignantly, sprawling himself further along the sofa. "Fucking hate that table. Didn't know that brow-bastard was as thick as Spain."

"Hmm," America replied, being as non-committal as possible in order to not lump England into the same brand of stupidity that Spain was apparently in. "He's noticed. He told me I'm too much like a brother to him for anything to happen and that I should get a reality check."

"Bullshit!" Romano snorted and nudged America's knee rather roughly with his bare foot (... when had he taken his shoes off?). "He wants you to fuck him in the ass. His brothers fucking suck, that's the worst goddamn reason ever."

America blinked at his drinking partner and wondered how on earth he ever managed to get girls to talk to him when he was wasted if he constantly talked like that. "Maybe he means I'm the most awesome brother he has."

"No fucking shit. At least you can get through a meeting without beating the shit out of... uh," Romano frowned and poured himself another shot. "That guy. The one everyone forgets about. Your brother-guy."

"Canada?" (Somewhere, Canada sneezed twice and wondered who was talking about him. It was a nice feeling, even if they were probably too drunk to remember him afterwards.)

"Yeah, whatever. I'm sort of glad 'brows handles his brother's stuff now. He's a jackass but he's not an idiot."

"Hey -" America stopped, considered the outcome of arguing with a unpredictable drunken Italian and changed the subject. "Does Spain know?"

Romano stared at him for a long, extremely awkward moment. "Seriously."

"Yeah?"

"Do you think he notices _anything_. Stupid bastard hasn't noticed for fucking centuries, dammit. At least England pays attention to you other than 'ah, Romano, you're so cute!'. Don't - I don't _want_ to be fucking just cute."

The Italian sniffed and looked away. America leaned forward and patted him reassuringly on the shoulder, cheered by not being punched in the face for his efforts. "Why don't you just say something?"

Romano stopped, turned and blinked at him. "... You think that would work?"

"I don't know. England noticed when I told him. Surely Spain isn't _that_ dumb."

"You didn't spend centuries living with him."

"Hmm." He had a point.

They both fell into a comfortable, contemplative, inebriated silence, America not minding when Romano's feet suddenly made themselves comfortable on his thigh and Romano not caring that much when the alcohol suddenly ran out (instead, he mumbled something obscene and prodded America as though it was his fault).

Suddenly a genius plan became apparent. America snapped his fingers and bounced off the sofa, making Romano yelp and throw his glass across the room, smashing and tinkling its way down the opposite wall. After a moment America's balance staggered, then failed him completely and he sank back down, still with a bright smile on his flushed face.

"I got it!"

"You're paying for that glass, asshole," Romano muttered, deliberately glossing over the fact that it wasn't his. America wasn't paying enough attention to care.

"We could make them jealous!" America was damn well going to make his point regardless of that weird look the other nation (well, half-of-one) was giving him. "They'll notice if we... like, do shit in front of them, right?"

"'Do shit'." The sentiment was fairly obvious.

"Yeah!" Holy shit, he was an utter _genius_. Just like all those awesome ideas he had for clearing everyone's colds or stopping global warming or curing swine flu, this one was a winner. Well. He had to get Romano to agree first, but that couldn't be too hard!

Romano's face was looking awfully difficult to persuade. "Tried that one. Somebody's never played this game before," America opened his mouth to butt in and claim that he definitely had played this stupid game before, dammit, until feet jabbed him hard in the ribs and he suddenly lost all motivation for speaking. "He didn't really give two shits. She worked it out and kicked me in the balls. Shit plan."

After he reassured himself that his ribs weren't going to spontaneously break down on him, America coughed and raised his eyebrows. "You only tried it with a girl, though. And I wouldn't kick you."

"What's your point?"

Geez. Did he have to spell everything out? "Maybe he'll get jealous if you do it with a guy. Closer to home, you know? Pretending we're doing it'll totally work."

Romano appeared to be seriously contemplating this, running the tip of his finger thoughtfully around the rim of a long since emptied vodka bottle, so America sat back with a smug grin and waited for the sheer amount of awesome oozing from his half-baked drunken plan to hit home.

"That's the shittiest pile of shit I've ever heard in my fucking life."

"But it would work!"

Romano threw the bottle at his face: it missed its intended target by miles and hit the carpet with a muted thump."No it wouldn't! How is the fact that you've got a cock going to change-"

"I'm _America_," he pointed out proudly. "The land of opportunity! We've gotta take the opportunity and run with it! Unless you want to be stuck at square one forever. I don't."

Pause. Let it sink in, my son.

"Fine, Christ. But if it doesn't work you'll never be able to tell anybody about this conversation ever, ever again."

"Deal!" America continued on, apparently ignorant of the Mafia-esque threat looming above his head. "I'm the hero, of course, so we'll crack England first-"

"I'm not your fucking _sidekick_!"

"Dude. You're _south_ Italy. You're always the sidekick."

Neither of them really remember what happened after Romano tried to beat America into a pulp - "I'll fucking _sidekick_ you you overpowered bastarding _shit_ -" - except for the discovery of tequila under the kitchen sink before he slammed America's face into it. After that everything was a very blurred, painful blank.

Romano rolled over and moaned, pushing his face back into whatever bizarrely solid object he had been lying on in an attempt to avoid the sunlight streaming in through the window setting fire to his retinas. He could swear his head was _vibrating_. What the hell. His back hurt. Actually, he just hurt in general. Had he even gotten home last night?

A brave moment allowed him to shield his eyes and crack one open, flinching even then at the sudden light forcing his pupil to dilate. No, he definitely wasn't home; he couldn't remember where he was, but the shattered glass at the other side of the room seemed awfully familiar. He groaned and collapsed back onto the makeshift pillow, hoping that somebody would turn up and help him because he really couldn't be arsed.

"Ow," his makeshift pillow suddenly said.

Oh fuck, he was hallucinating, too? Being the entirely lucid, reasonable nation that he was, Romano screamed and shoved the... _thing_ with surprising amounts of fear-applied strength until it crashed to the floor. Hah, hell yeah, he could even kick the shit out of shit he's just made u-

America blinked up at him and looked a little hurt. Oh. "Sorry, man."

His mouth felt like something had crawled into it and died. He resolved to not speak again until he could cadge a drink off America or something.

"Texas, Texas..."

America appeared to be rummaging for something and Romano didn't feel like being helpful, so instead he sniffed and pressed his face into the fabric of the sofa. After a moment, an 'aha!' drilled its way into his headache and a horrifically cheerful, hangover-less (how?) and now-bespectacled America was pulling his legs out from the stiff position they had been in for the best part of a while and dragging him across the floor.

"What the fuck – nooo, I want to stay here, fuck off my headache has a fucking _migrane_," Romano complained and whined at an Olympic gold-standard level but of course, he was dealing with someone just as stupid as his brother was and he knew only too well that whining did nothing.

"We can talk about the plan after coffee, come on, Romano, it'll help!"

Coffee did not help. He knew this only too well. But he agreed anyway because he totally couldn't be arsed to struggle against somebody who could throw around bulls without breaking a sweat. Thus, Romano found himself struggling not to throw up over America's breakfast bar over the stench of instant coffee and – those had better not be cheeseburgers – wondering why this had ever seemed like an idea that wasn't potentially life-ruining. Was he really that desperate?

"Okay," he said suddenly, propping his head up on his hand and stopping America's ramble about... something he didn't care about with a flick of his wrist. "First. No weird shit: that includes below-the-waist touching, any conversations about your plans for global warming, photographs or any other kind of material evidence, and any jokes about... anything."

"Why?"

Romano sighed. "I hate your kind of humour, that's why. Also if this doesn't work I'm going to beat your face in properly this time, got it?"

America considered this, frowning down at the half-drunk coffee he was holding. "It's obviously going to work, because I made it up, so I don't need to worry about that!"

"Think whatever the hell you want," Romano replied, sincerely regretting getting himself into this. "Okay, genius, what are we planning first?"


	2. Most Carefully Deceived

England did not like the American idea of 'beer'. It was watery and bland and it was difficult to get easily pissed on, therefore it didn't serve its purpose and was quite frankly useless. American bars weren't much better – they still smelt of stale smoke, something that only intensified at night. Still, if he drank enough of it maybe his mind would at least start to blur together and he wouldn't need to be bothered by the smell or the fact that America hadn't come to bother him for four days.

Not that he really cared at all, of course. It was just a kind of odd tradition that America would turn up frequently to complain about his cooking, announce that he was calling another World Meeting out of what he could only consider as extreme masochism or confessing... love to him. England sighed and rubbed his forehead with his thumb. It... he didn't really know what to make of it. Underneath all the times he'd wanted to strangle the little shit and leave him with Russia or something, America was still his little brother – and a fairly decent one, at that. Fairly being the operative word.

Well, at least he didn't regularly send him hexes in the post. Or co-operate with a certain irritating micronation in order to set fire to his postbox. (He wasn't sure what the deal with him never receiving any readable post was.)

He just... couldn't get his head around it. Surely the idea of them being... lovers (he hated that word) would seem ludicrous to the eternally-youthful superpower nation who had proved him wrong all those centuries ago. Apparently not. Maybe America was into that kind of thing.

England immediately tried to forget ever having that thought there.

So anyway, he was stuck in America for a few days, his boss having nudged him gently to go; if only for the sake of his and everyone else's sanity, probably. He was fully aware that he'd been a little more irritated than usual and he didn't want to offend the man (his boss was very, very hard to read sometimes), so he was obviously here because of that and absolutely nothing else. America could ignore him if he liked. It didn't bother him at all – it seemed like his countrymen weren't all that bothered about a cooling relationship with the United States –

Who was sitting _right over there_. In a bar. Why was he in a bar? England scowled and craned his neck in what he hoped was in an inconspicuous fashion, trying to see what the hell that git was doing. Well, whatever it was he looked his usual obliviously cheerful self and he wasn't alone, but that didn't immediately bother him. Surely he couldn't have gotten served, for all intents and purposes he was nineteen and certainly not old enough to buy alcohol (not in _this_ state, anyway), a law he'd cheerfully put upon himself, and dammit if he wasn't going to keep it.

He moved to hop off his stool – why were they so ludicrously high, he thought huffily – before he suddenly caught a glimpse of one of the Italian brothers. This stopped him and he tilted his head as though this would change the sight in front of him at all. Why was America _fraternising_ with one of them, of all nations to go out drinking with? Which one was it, the oblivious one or the... oh, excellent, the irrationally angry one. Who didn't look irrationally angry at the moment, for some reason. England relaxed and moved to leave them alone before the sudden realisation hit him.

He was one of Spain's strange... colony-children! Even if he had been on a different continent than most of them that idiot had still had an influence in his upbringing and – well, anything of Spain's pissed him off. It was a general consensus and it always held true. Like hell he was going to let America make another mistake. His gangster problem had been bad enough in the 1920s and he knew exactly where they had come from.

He wasn't drunk enough to make a scene. His fondness for subtlety and keeping a stiff upper lip at all times often overrode his past's more... forward approach to things and were they _holding hands_?! England's eye twitched and he could feel the interpunct dotting itself at the end of his thought process. The rest of it consisted of curiously unintelligible cursing that caused him to bubble over and slam his hand on the bar, disturbing the man who had been drooling on the counter in his sleep next to him but – aaargh. Fuck.

He turned on his heel and left before he – he did something reminiscent of his pirate days. No matter how good it would feel beating that little _shit_ to a pulp.

-

"I think it worked!" America cheered, dropping Romano's hand to clap his own hands together in triumph. "Told you hand-holding would do it."

Romano glowered at him and tried to force the heat rising rapidly to his cheeks back to where it had come from. "No, he didn't come over and try to drag you off or threaten me or something. It didn't work. I told you this sucked."

"Yeah, but now he's going to think we're dating," America replied, grinning broadly as though he had just accomplished something more globally useful than possibly giving his former caretaker another thing to have an aneurysm over. "Which means it'll be easier to make him jealous without having to do as much."

Romano thought this over for a moment, then let the corner of his lips twitch in the beginning of a smile. He didn't, of course – he only smiled properly in the presence of pretty women and that made it a showstopper – but it was a start. "So we don't need to resort to... that. Maybe you're not completely thick."

"Thank you," came the unexpected reply. America probably took these things as a compliment (otherwise, Romano decided, he would be a lot more insane than he actually was). "High-five?"

"No."

America's face fell a little. "Why not?"

"It's gay."

Neither of them mentioned the irony.

-

Who phoned people midway through their _siesta_? Spain cracked one eye open and fumbled for the phone, retrieving it from under his pillow after a moment (how had it gotten there?) and opened with his usual phone greeting. "Nnnghfh?"

"You!"

Oh. It was England. "Hmm, England, what is it? I was sleeping..."

"Why were you asleep at eight in the evening?"

Spain frowned and looked at the clock. So it was. "It's warm today."

Pause. A sigh. "Right, whatever. This isn't about your terrible sleeping habits -"

"- I don't have -"

"Shut _up_! Have you seen that Italy of yours recently?"

His Italy? Spain smiled, amused. "No, I thought he was with America. Why don't you ask him?"

"I'm not looking for him, I'm trying to work out what the hell he's _doing_ with America in the first place."

"Drinking, I guess."

"Drink -!" Oh dear. England appeared to be hyperventilating down the phone. What a waste of thirty seconds he could be spending asleep. Spain sighed.

"I'm sure they're not doing anything," he lied in an attempt to make England go away faster. No doubt Romano was being a terrible influence, at least in England's eyes. Romano rarely ever accomplished these things he encouraged everyone else to do, but the thought was apparently pushing him over the edge.

"I think they're _dating._"

"Oh, really?"

"Is that all you have to say?!"

Spain thought about it for a moment. "... That's... that's so cute!"

A loud clunk sounded from the other end of the line. "It most certainly is not, you insufferable moron! Tell Romano to stay the hell away from America or I'll -"

"Mmmhmm," Spain replied, yawning and cutting England off mid-rant. "You sound a little jealous. Upset that Romano can get where you can't~"

The line went dead.

Spain looked at the phone for a moment, then smiled and replaced it on the receiver. America and Romano? It was adorable, but somehow... something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on. It made him feel a little uneasy. Well, whatever. He could always think about it later.


	3. Rake It In

Romano was dangling himself half-out of the bathroom window, cigarette pressed tight between his lips and one ear listening out for the door. It had been, what, at least a month since he'd passed out on top of America with a killer tequila hangover and they were doing...? Nothing, that's damn well what. After England had finished having a fusty old-man stroke over hand-holding he had acted like it hadn't happened at all, and Spain was still incredibly fucking oblivious. Mostly because if that guy had a braincell, it would be lonely. Romano huffed irritably and exhaled, idly watching the stream of white smoke spiral and evaporate into the air.

Nothing else they had tried had worked out either. Not because they were bad ideas, obviously (both of them were very adamant about this), but they tended to backfire due to unexpected factors outwith their control. Like that potato bastard phoning him halfway through and announcing that his dumbass brother had food poisoning from – well, somewhere, but by then Romano had slammed the phone down and ran out of the parlour, leaving a bewildered America and Spain, and what he only assumed was a grateful England. That stupid bastard was so incredibly passive-aggressive, Romano thought (rather hypocritically). Spain had at least shown no apparent realisation of what they were doing, although that wasn't exactly helpful. ... Maybe he felt a little bad. Just a little.

"Yo! Roma, you still in there? What'cha up to, setting a new world record? Hey, it smells like smoke in there –" America's voice, although mercifully muffled by the door between them, boomed into the bathroom and made Romano scowl.

"Who says I'm doing anything?" he snapped back, stubbing out the cigarette butt on the outside wall and straightening up. "I'm obviously trying to have some down-time in here. Go and play your stupid-ass video game or whatever it is."

"I died again, so I gave up. I don't get why it's so hard," America lamented, shifting around and leaning against the door as he spoke, the excellent acoustics of the bathroom making his question sound far more dramatic than it should be.

"Maybe you just suck," Romano replied, turning on the tap and washing his hands for no real reason other than to stall for time. "I mean, that game doesn't look hard. All you're doing is pressing one button over and over again and things die. It can't require any actual skill." He dried his hands – hmm, at least America had some decent towels – and opened the door, lips curling into an amused smirk as his new-found somewhat friend started and staggered backwards. Romano pushed him back up with one hand and continued walking down the hall. Man, that was almost cool...

"It is too hard!" Oh, great, here comes a long-winded defence of something nobody cared about. Moment ruined "I'd like to see you try it, Roma. I bet you couldn't even beat the first time-trial –"

Romano turned his head, America suddenly besides him again, his smirk replaced by a dark scowl. "When did I say you could call me 'Roma'?"

America, used to this sort of rebuke, replied "'cause I heard Spain call you it when we tried the feeding each other ice-cream thing, and it's easier to say!"

"Don't take examples from that bastard! It's only one damn syllable smaller!"

"Still shorter!"

"Screw you," Romano huffed, which was interpreted by the other party as 'America 7: Romano 4' and America smiled gleefully at being able to add another point to their imaginary scoreboard. Romano had been over here a lot more often lately, and they'd both started silently recording their achievements over their nitpicky arguments. They had sort of bonded silently over this, despite being unaware of the other's doing so. "So, what was that about me not being able to beat something in your stupid-ass game that you probably stole from that weirdo Japan?"

"I borrowed it! And okay, Roma, I'll let you start a new file and watch you lose!"

Romano snorted, stepping lightly down the stairs to America's living room, his mood lightened by the prospect of beating America at something and adding to his score. "Sure, sure, whatever. It's a challenge, asshole."

This was far more frustrating than it should be. England was pretty confident that Spain had been smarter when he'd sunk the stupid bastard's 'Invincible Armada' all those centuries ago, and even then he hadn't exactly been the brightest bulb in the box. Challenging an island nation's navy wasn't exactly an intelligent decision, after all.

* * *

"Listen to me. They're doing _something_."

Spain frowned thoughtfully, absently twirling the tiny umbrella that had come with his drink around between his fingers and glancing around the restaurant as he spoke. "I think it's nice that Romano is making friends. He's usually driven them off by now. America's getting on pretty wel–"

Breathing in deeply and counting to ten clearly just wasn't going to work, unless England wanted to do it for the next three hours and end up not say anything at all. "Spain, they're not just 'making friends'. Friends just – don't – do that. Especially that thing in the ice-cream shop. That was just inappropriate."

England glanced at Spain's face after he had finished, valiantly holding out for some glimmer of recognition in the other nation's face. Instead, Spain broke into a ridiculous dimpled smile that he tried to poorly conceal with his hand, and England immediately wanted to bash his face off the table. Or bash Spain's. Or maybe both at the same time. He'd feel better either way.

"What?"

"Oh, stop being so annoyed, I get it," Spain replied, at last with something that didn't make England want to strangle him. He put down the umbrella and steepled his fingers, resting his chin on them. "I didn't know you were such a jealous man, ha ha... that's unusually cute for you!"

"Shut up," England snapped back, stubbornly ignoring the fact that he could feel the heat rising in his face. "You should really learn how to stop avoiding issues. It's your weakness, you know."

Spain hummed, apparently unfazed by this rather disparaging remark. "Maybe you should learn to take that stick out of your ass. Ah – don't! I'm not finished," he shushed England with a slight furrow of his eyebrows, then continued. "It's not an issue. It's an improvement! Well, maybe not for you, but Romano is always afraid of confronting himself. Doing this means he's accepted his feelings~ it feels nice, right?"

England could have punched the damn bastard for being so damn annoying and two-faced for the past month, but the happiness evident on Spain's face made him soften a little bit. The elder Italy brother had been nothing but trouble since the day he'd met him – having less than fond memories the liberation of Sicily during the dying years of the Second World War, where Romano had immediately given him a black eye and shouted at him for the best part of three hours – but he'd never thought about Spain's take on the little shit. They were always together, after all, so he had just assumed that Spain was happy with whatever he got.

"Hmm. America is harder to read," England replied shortly. It was hardly a lie – America's poor social skills (which were mostly his fault, come to think of it) regularly contributed to him being the most frustrating colony England had ever had. Most infuriating piece of crapland he had ever bothered invading and sticking a flag on and damn if he didn't adore him just a little bit for that. Sometimes. When he wasn't claiming super-saiyan robots could save the environment or teasing him about those Valentine's chocolates...

While England paused to love and hate America at the same time for a minute, Spain paused to deeply contemplate his statement, distractedly waving away a waitress asking if he wanted any more drinks. "Maybe you should just push him over and sit on him. Then he'll have to listen to ya'."

The waitress, slightly bewildered, just nodded and slipped back off towards the kitchen again. England sighed. "Seriously?"

"One-hundred per cent," Spain grinned widely, eyes crinkling shut with amusement, leaning back in his seat as though he were the coolest fucking guy on the planet. "Maybe you should just molest him right there too, like in your porn books ya' always got."

"I do _not_ have any of those!"

"Calling France a liar?"

"You believe anything that bastard frog-shit says?"

"Sometimes," Spain said rather cryptically. (England didn't ask him to elaborate.) "Doesn't explain all those books with 'ERO' written on them, though."

Maybe if he just strangled this little bastard of a nation right here and now nobody would notice. England breathed in sharply through his nose, counted; one, two, three... four five six blah blah ten.

"Shut up or I'll kick you in your shitty Invincible Armada again."

Spain's left eye muscle twitched. England smirked.

There was a lull in conversation for a short while, with Spain wondering why on earth he was here in the first place with some friendless egotistical jerk, and England contemplating how to convince someone he had pretty much repeatedly kicked in the balls during his Empire days into co-operating with them.

(Nobody _helped_ England.)

Suddenly, there was a brainwave. The sheer size of this knocked over England's drink and sent the glass crashing to the floor with a shatter that silenced half the restaurant. Well, to be precise it had been Spain's fist slamming against the table in excitement causing England's knee to hit the underside in surprise which had knocked the glass that had done that, but everyone later agreed that that wasn't the point.

"It's summer!" Spain said joyfully after profusely apologising to the waitress for breaking things, and rather pointedly not apologising for England's current state of extreme pain that had his face pressed against the cool wood as though that would help his knee. Good riddance for being a prick.

"No shit, dumbfuck," England mumbled irritably into the table. His knee throbbed painfully with every word. "I'm not going to any of your festivals. My countrymen just embarrass me."

Spain ignored the first part. "Good, I hate your tourists. They keep throwing Germany's towels into the pool and then they get upset and complain. Both of them, which is strange, don't you think? No, I mean - I have an idea!"

"Oh?"

* * *

"WHAT."

"Missed again," America replied cheerfully, having spread himself across the floor with his legs lying on the chair behind him, watching the screen upside-down. Romano made a strange strangled 'chii' noise in response.

They'd only been playing for maybe four-five hours tops, and already America could tell that Romano was way too panicky for this sort of thing. Okay, maybe he had put him on Veteran mode because it was funnier, and it had been, but he was pretty sure there were going to be permanent controller-shaped dents in the wall after this. He'd been trying to shoot this guy for at least half an hour, and considering you failed the mission when he went under cover... well...

"MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF COCKSUCKING SHIT WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS CONTROLLER."

Despite Romano's extremely loud curses and screams at the poor verbally abused console, it always seemed to America that he wasn't actually questioning the thing's capacity to handle peripherals. Just a bit of rhetorical bellowing seemed to do the trick.

"Shoot him like, right after the helicopter goes past," America said, trying to be helpful, but only earning a snarling scowl from Romano before he restarted the mission.

"Go die in a hole."

"That's what you're meant to be making happen to that guy. Well. You'll only shoot his arm off, but –"

"_What_?"

And suddenly there was a flash of well-dressed Italian soaring across the room to drag him off the chair and sit on him, fists pressed right up at America's eye-level and making him slightly nervous. He'd heard the Italy brothers were sort of useless but Romano's knee was pressing _really_ uncomfortably into his balls and jesus, this wasn't the one with the mafia problem was it? (He couldn't remember; it had been a while since he'd made or watched a good mafia movie.)

"Are you telling me that this is pointless?" Romano snapped into America's face, their noses pressing uncomfortably against the others', dark hazel eyes silently insinuating that he wasn't going to able to father any kind of children if he didn't give the right answer right the fuck now.

"Well, you shoot him dead at the end of the game but just not in this mission owowow Romano stop it please it's not my fault –" he coughed and wheezed sharply, wondering if he was just going to suffocate to death (but deciding not to ask directly in case Romano took it as a jibe about his weight and actually killed him) before his cell rang.

Oh, thank _God_.

Romano trapped America's hand under his calf, pulling out America's phone from his pocket and glancing at the caller ID. "Oh. It's that bastard England. Didn't know he knew how to use a phone."

"C-can I answer it?"

Raising his eyebrows, Romano flipped the phone open and held it up to his ear. "Yo, bastard, what do _you_ want?"

America squirmed uncomfortably under Romano's weight as his and England's conversation became louder and more violent – Romano at least had the courtesy to switch on the loudspeaker – but he didn't seem to have the strength available to get the other nation off him. Well, he did, but he didn't really want to throw him into the opposite wall...

"Oh, you wanna talk to America? Well, too bad, we're busy, see?" With everything Romano said, America was seriously beginning to wonder if he took lines from his movies.

"_Romano if you don't give America this phone right fucking now_ –"

Romano rolled his eyes and dropped the phone to the floor, untrapping America's hand and allowing him to answer it. He even helpfully shifted down from sitting on his captive's stomach to balancing on his pelvis so America could breathe a little better.

"England?"

They had a considerably shorter and quieter conversation, England explaining the recent developments in the nation's lives and that he and Romano ("_if he'll stop trying to murder you, that is_") were invited to some kind of party, apparently.

"Oh, Roma, England says that Germany says your brother is getting better."

"Tell him to tell Veneciano I hope he chokes next time. Maybe then he'll learn something."

"He says to send him his best wishes," America said down the phone.

"I did not! Don't lie, you fucking –"

"What? Oh, um, it's fine, really – Romano's just sitting on me."

Even with the loudspeaker now turned off, Romano still smirked at the spluttering he could only imagine was occurring down the phone. "I'm fine! We'll go, England, stop worrying so much – mhmm, yeah, uh-huh... bye. Bye!"

The phone clicked shut and America smiled (rather bravely) up at him. "Hey, Roma, guess what?"

"I already know you're going to be dead after this."

"No – we're invited, actually. And I'm not going to die, you don't even have a butter knife with you."

It was truly infallible logic.


End file.
